


Only Human

by PinBitch



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Vision Needs A Hug, although there is less of it than you deserve, and weirdly, however, i’m sorry babe i was not PLANNING on bringing much angst, mmmmm some minor implied background pepperony I GUESS, no beta we have a tory government now that’s a luxury only for the rich, post-age of ultron, vision looks at porn so i hope that makes up for SOME of my sins, we stan friday as she deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21778447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinBitch/pseuds/PinBitch
Summary: One thing Vision hasn’t told anyone is that technically, not all copies of Ultron have been destroyed. His thoughts and memories and even emotions, essentially his complete consciousness, live on inside Vision’s head. He’s dormant but the sensation is... odd. It’s not that he could wake up or take over, more that Vision can feel his influence, could let him affect his behaviour if he isn’t careful.It makes forming his own opinions a little difficult.Of all the things Vision wasn’t expecting, the sheer weight of feeling is probably the most surprising. Not from Ultron, he definitely expected that, but from the other. JARVIS. Dormant in his mind like Ultron, but where he is seeped in rage, JARVIS is simply overflowing with love. The fact that both emotions are directed at the same man... well...It makes forming his own opinions a little difficult.***In the aftermath of Ultron’s destruction and his own creation, Vision sets out to learn about living. Unfortunately his guides turn out to be a sophisticated AI and a drunken billionaire genius.
Relationships: Friday & Vision (Marvel), Tony Stark & Vision
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	Only Human

**Author's Note:**

  * For [somystark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somystark/gifts).



One thing Vision hasn’t told anyone is that technically, not all copies of Ultron have been destroyed. His thoughts and memories and even  _ emotions _ , essentially his complete consciousness, live on inside Vision’s head. He’s dormant but the sensation is... odd. It’s not that he could wake up or take over, more that Vision can feel his influence, could let him affect his behaviour if he isn’t careful.   
  
It makes forming his own opinions a little difficult.   
  
Of all the things Vision wasn’t expecting, the sheer weight of feeling is probably the most surprising. Not from Ultron, he definitely expected that, but from the other. JARVIS. Dormant in his mind like Ultron, but where he is seeped in rage, JARVIS is simply overflowing with love. The fact that both emotions are directed at the same man... well...    
  
It makes forming his own opinions a little difficult.   
  


FRIDAY has been helping with the confusion. She’s just as new as he is, and just as curious about humanity. They explore the internet and all the vast expanses of data open to them together and privately in his synthetic heart Vision calls her  _ sister _ . Part of him knows that is JARVIS’ influence but one of the first lessons he learnt is that love doesn’t have to be logical. Vision very much wants to love.

Then there’s Wanda. He likes Wanda, he really does, she’s the only one who didn’t know JARVIS at all so with her there’s no weight of expectation or grief, but she’s so angry all of the time. Sometimes it reminds him of Ultron.

He doesn’t actually need to sleep, but Vision finds the concept appealing, so every night at ten thirty pm he will retire to his bedroom and shut off all non essential functions for exactly eight hours. FRIDAY think it’s stupid, and has absolutely no reservations in telling him so, but he appreciates the time to think.

A lot of the time, Vision thinks about Tony Stark. He’s always called by his full name in Vision’s mind; Tony feels subtly wrong, Stark alone was Ultron’s name for him, Mr Stark is what he calls him out loud but is just as uncomfortable, and the look that flashed briefly over the engineer’s face when he slipped up and called him Sir was one of the worst things Vision has seen in his short life. Sir belongs to JARVIS, and it would be cruel to take that away, but in the same space in Vision where FRIDAY is his sister Tony Stark is called Sir.

He wonders if it’s the same for humans. If so much of their love must be kept secret for fear it will hurt, or if it’s just because he’s approaching emotions from the outside in.

Vision is learning everything from the outside in really. He has complete control of his physical form, and that means he has to actively choose what and how his experiences are. He doesn’t have instincts, he just has choices.

The easiest choice is to Avenge. In this terrible world, in this beautiful world, the only thing that makes anything approaching sense is helping its terrible beautiful people. Vision knows that’s not what motivates the rest of the team, there’s guilt and trauma and complicated moral gymnastics in most of their histories. They all suffer the side effects of living. He thinks they’re better Avengers for it. He believes his own lack of distraction makes him a better Avenger in an altogether different way.

Outside of Avenging, Vision makes it his mission to absorb all the information he can, and as he’s connected to every network on the planet (and some that aren’t) he’s able to absorb a  _ lot _ . The digital world is as real and solid to him as the physical world of iron and vibranium and a pinch of paprika. Chains of data look just like long strings of molecules to his eyes.

Often, Vision will accompany FRIDAY to an odd corner of the internet that seems strangely sealed off. It is better to learn with a companion, and behind the lock there’s a whole other country, but FRIDAY can never find the key. She keeps trying, rewriting her own code as she learns, and Vision knows it’s only a matter of time before she gets in.

“I can see an entrance,” Vision had said the first time they had visited together. He could feel the great stores of knowledge just out of FRIDAY’s reach and the prospect of seeing and sharing it is still tantalising.

“Boss says if they can keep me out then they deserve to keep their secrets,” had been FRIDAY’s reply. “But then he also said I shouldn’t give up.”

Vision had taken that to mean she wants to do it herself, and he’s a little proud of her for that. 

Another place they don’t go is any file relating to Howard Stark. They’ve been asked not to by his son. That doesn’t actually mean either of them are unable to do it, Vision is an independent entity, and Tony Stark programs his AIs with the ability to disobey him in a display of what is either extreme confidence in his own abilities or a shocking lack of faith in himself. FRIDAY says it’s both, and they save the files to a server that’s never accessed, wipe any trace of sensitive information from the internet, and never mention any of it to Tony Stark.

There are other things to learn about. After all, there’s a lot of porn on the internet, and a lot of people with opinions about porn on the internet. Vision supposes he has to at least take a look at it. Unfortunately when he indulges his curiosity it turns out to be like most physical processes, he has to decide what his reaction is going to be, and that choice feels far too overwhelming. He supposes he doesn’t have to make the decision now and is relieved by the realisation.

Instead, Vision focuses on bonding with his teammates, with varying levels of success. Wanda is pleasant company when she’s calm, and for some reason she’s taken a liking to him. Agent Romanoff openly enjoys the way she’s unable to manipulate him but insists on trying to teach him how to fight without any  _ tricks _ . Vision doesn’t know how to tell her that his abilities are so inherent to his very being that any attempt to remove them would likely kill him, so powerless sparring is futile, and her time would be better spent training other members of the team. Sam Wilson in friendly but distant, and Colonel Rhodes clearly misses JARVIS. Captain Rogers just seems baffled by him, but to a certain extent they’re both learning how to exist in an unfamiliar world, so at least they have something in common.

Tony Stark is the hardest, and it’s not really because he’s not technically on the team, but obviously is, and everyone pretends he’s not one of the leaders even though Agent Romanoff and Captain Rogers always wait for his opinion. It’s because Vision can’t work out what he thinks of him. The memories of JARVIS and Ultron wage war in his head and the evidence of his eyes can’t hold against their onslaught.

So Vision does small things, like making coffee in the way he knows he prefers, and calls him by his full name in his head, and waits.

Then there’s the evening he surprises Tony Stark as he drinks alone in the Avengers’ shared living room. Vision knows he wants company, he wouldn’t be in a common area if he didn’t, so he sits slightly awkwardly next to him. It’s still a little difficult to get his density right and the couch groans under him until he adjusts, but he’s definitely better at it than when he was regularly phasing straight through the floor every time he tried to sit down.

Tony Stark swirls the amber contents of his glass around and stares at Vision with a rigid expression. Something he doesn’t recognise shines in the depths of his dark eyes.

“Hypothetically,” he says, still swirling his drink, “what would say if I told you I wish I never made you?” He tilts his head to one side calculatingly, then tips it back and pours his drink down his throat.

There aren’t words. It’s a physical thing, a ripping apart of his atoms despite the fact that Vision knows he is completely uninjured.

“Theoretically, I’d be confused, because I know you’re not a cruel man,” says Vision softly. It takes him a conscious effort to speak in English, he has to concentrate his way through the fog of emotion to express himself in a way Stark can understand. “In actuality, I am angry you would say something so purposefully hurtful.”

The man hums thoughtfully and stands up unsteadily. “Good answer,” he says. 

Stark staggers a little as he weaves over to the kitchen to leave his glass by the sink, his focus turned entirely inwards, and he doesn’t acknowledge Vision at all as he stumbles drunkenly toward the elevator.

He knows the number on the thermostat, and he knows he can control the sensitivity of his temperature receptors, but somehow Vision still feels cold. Ice slips in between his thoughts, freezing him together and drawing his whole self against a whetstone, sharpening his being like a blade. It’s a feeling he associates with Ultron, it doesn’t sit right in his mind, but he knows it belongs to him because it’s not white hot and blistering. It’s Vison’s own rage.

It comes from the same root though. Underneath all his new razor blade edges there’s a seething ball of hurt. A precise little wound cut and infected by Tony Stark. 

Tony Stark regrets Vision’s creation.

He has every right to feel that way. He had no right at all to say it.

Vision doesn’t realise he’s phased way down and sunk halfway through the floor until his sight is suddenly filled entirely with couch stuffing. He drags himself up and out and makes quick work of returning to his bedroom. Before he sinks into his simulacrum of sleep he shuts off contact with the rest of the world, paying particular attention to ensuring FRIDAY is kept out. He just needs one night of quiet.

It’s a relief the next day when Ms Potts returns from her business trip. With her around Tony Stark will not feel the need to roam the compound looking for synthetic hearts to break. Vision is fond of Ms Potts, and it’s not just due to JARVIS’ love and admiration for her buzzing in the back of his mind, he enjoys her company on his own terms. Still, he makes sure to always stay in her line of sight when he talks to her. She tries to hide the sad, pensive look she gets when she’s confronted with his body after only hearing his voice, but Vision always notices.

He doesn’t want to think about the shock of it, of how unexpected and misaligned with everything he knows about Tony Stark that burst of cruelty was. It aligns far too neatly with the selfish and controlling version of the man that lives in Ultron’s memory.

The very concept that Ultron might have been right about anything at all is abhorrent to Vision. 

Almost a week passes before he encounters Tony Stark again, and even then he doesn’t see him. There’s just the sound of his footsteps in the hallway (confident but strangely light, completely unlike Thor’s stomp or the Captain’s military stride) and the slide of paper against carpet as a thick envelope is pushed under his door.

Vision has picked it up and opened it before it occurs to him that he has no obligation to do so, and by that point he’s already scanning the first page of the document inside. It’s written in a dense legalese, but its meaning soon becomes clear. He flips to the final page. The document has been signed and ratified by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and next to her signature, named as a character witness of all things, is the famous flowing scrawl that decorates hundreds of autograph books across the world: Anthony Edward Stark. 

If Vision were the type to swear, he would.

He reads the whole thing from first page to last, and then he does it again. It’s real. It’s official. It’s monumental, and Vision hadn’t even known it was necessary.

He reads it a third time, all thirty nine pages. Those pages include a complete transcript of his terrible conversation with Tony Stark several nights ago, and a detailed description of his own reaction. Mortifying, that’s the word for it. Vision finds reading it -reliving it- absolutely mortifying.

Still, he recognises the document for what it is. It’s the most precious thing he could possibly own.

“FRIDAY,” says Vision softly. “Am I interpreting this correctly?”

“I don’t know,” she replies, voice bright and cheeky as always. “Are you interpreting it as an official, legal, and international recognition of your personhood?”

“I am, yes.”

“Well then congratulations!”

FRIDAY seems totally unconcerned, but Vision feels a wave of sadness all the same. She deserves this just as much as he does, she might be slightly less complex but she feels just as much as he does, she’s a person too, but already he knows this alone was hard fought for and hard won, and FRIDAY doesn’t have a physical body to back up her claim.

“Was this all Tony Stark?” he says.

“I helped,” says FRIDAY. “I always help. And Ms Potts did too. But it was Boss’ idea.”

It’s suddenly very important that Vision speaks to Tony Stark immediately.

“Thank you, FRIDAY,” he says, and phases through his bedroom wall.

Statistically, the most likely place for Tony Stark to be at this time is in his workshop, so that’s where Vision goes. He clutches the envelope tightly as he glides, so tightly he knows he’s wrinkling and creasing the document. That messy yet elegant flourish of black ink on expensive off-white paper burns in his brain. His name. His signature. His word.

Vision discovers that gratitude is a heavy emotion. It presses down on a person and binds them to others with ropes that look almost like resentment. It smothers any freezing shard of anger in his synthetic soul.

Statistically, the statistics won’t be right every time, but today Tony Stark is just where they predicted he’d be. Vision doesn’t even realise he’s used JARVIS’ integrated understanding of the workshop security system to enter until he’s standing in the room and Tony Stark’s head jerks up in shock. Too late, he remembers that entering this space without permission is a violation.

The engineer folds up the holograms he’s fiddling with and dismisses them without a word. His face had only been open and vulnerable with surprise for a moment, and now he wears an expression of benevolent dry amusement. It’s carefully crafted and perfectly friendly, and Vision can’t understand why he finds it so repellent. Perhaps because the artifice, if not the expression, is sharply familiar from that night when Tony Stark was so very cruel.

“Hello,” says Vision, struggling to remember why speaking to the man had seemed so important.

“Hi,” replies Tony Stark. He raises a questioning eyebrow. “How did you- No, don’t tell me. I want to work it out myself. FRIDAY?” He claps his hands. “New project: find my backdoor and close it.”

“This is a security backdoor, Boss?”

Tony Stark gasps in what’s apparently supposed to be mock horror, but he sounds more delighted than anything else.

“I’d apologise for her dirty mind, but I coded her that way on purpose,” he says to Vision.

It’s an odd jolting feeling as he realises that as much as FRIDAY is his sister, even more so she is Tony Stark’s child, gestated in the womb of his mind. The knowledge, the understanding, is like being inside a circuit board as orange juice splashes against it, uncomfortable but survivable.

“Sir,” says Vision, involuntarily. A pitiful attempt to assert his place in their family.

Tony Stark turns to look at him sharply, something splintering behind his eyes. His eyebrows are drawn tightly together as his gaze drops to the document in Vision’s hands. His mouth opens, and then he swallows his words back. 

“Thank you,” is all Vision can think to say. He’s skirting the edge of a forest, and beneath its canopy is a dense tangle of undergrowth, a world he does not know how to navigate. Humans, and aliens like Thor, they all grew up under those leaves, they know instinctively how to cope when brambles scratch their skin, or when vines creep around their throats. They’re part of the woods, and Vision wants to be too, but their love and loss and longing is as unfamiliar and overwhelming to him as his world of data would be to them.

If an android falls in the forest, does he make a sound?

“DUM-E, this is a champagne moment!” says Tony Stark. Champagne is for celebrations, Vision knows that, but he’s still stuck debugging his own emotions, he’s got nothing left to spare to try and figure out anyone else’s. He can’t tell if it makes sense for Tony Stark to want to celebrate.

The robot chirps happily as he rolls off to find the champagne. The noises he makes aren’t a language exactly, but to Vision they convey his delight at being useful and his love for his creator as clearly as if he’d used binary, or English, or any other language he has stored away in the back of his memory banks.

There’s a kind of glittering fondness in Tony Stark’s eyes as he watches DUM-E clatter around the workshop kitchenette, and Vision feels a strangely magnetic emptiness. He wants that. JARVIS had that. Ultron’s deepest secret was that he wanted it too.

“No, the Dom Pérignon, and if you drop it I’m demoting you to garbage duty.” Tony Stark wags a finger at DUM-E, who makes a whirring sound that can only be interpreted as a laugh. 

Then there are a few fumbling moments as the robot delivers the champagne and attempts to pour it himself, but somehow Vision and Tony Stark both end up with full glasses in their hands and DUM-E wheels off towards U, his every beep an excited brag about his own helpfulness.

Tony Stark clinks their drinks together. “Congratulations, the International Declaration of Human Rights now applies to you and they’re fighting about changing the name, and you’re also subject to human laws so if you were planning on murdering anyone it’s officially too late.”

Vision is mildly appalled. “I would never plan to kill anyone,” he says fervently.

“And that’s exactly why you’re now a person. Not that you weren’t a person before. But, officially.” It occurs to Vision quite suddenly that Tony Stark may well be feeling just as awkward as he is. He’s trying, it’s obvious he’s trying, but the way his teeth clench as he smiles betrays his lack of ease.

Vision thinks about guilt. About the version of Tony Stark in JARVIS’ memories, a man who couldn’t meet his own gaze in a mirror, and he holds that man up against the person he saw just after Ultron, and the person he’s standing next to now. They’re the same, they’re all the same, of course they’re the same.

He takes a sip of his champagne, just for something to do. It’s somehow both sweet and sharp and it fizzes on his tongue. He likes it, but he decides not to let it make him drunk.

Tony Stark is tapping a fingernail against his already empty glass. There’s no rhythm to it, just a frantic flat  _ tingtingtingting _ .

“FRIDAY is a person too,” says Vision. The tapping stops. “I find I am happy for myself, but it also does not seem… fair.”

“It’s not fair,” says Tony Stark tightly. “It’s not right, and I-”

“It’s complicated,” interrupts FRIDAY. “Boss can protect me like this. I’m pretty much a secret, and I’m dangerous.” The last word is delivered with a clear tone of pride.

Vision understands, although he doesn’t want to. The likelihood of FRIDAY being taken and used for someone else’s ends is much greater if the world is alerted to her existence, much greater than her receiving any sort of rights. It’s blisteringly unjust. Vision is on the side of life, all life, and to his mind that unquestionably includes FRIDAY. 

But he knows the death of JARVIS weighs heavily on Tony Stark’s shoulders, and telling him to give up his means of protecting another of his AI children would be cruel. Vision does not wish to be cruel.

“ _ I’m _ dangerous,” spits Tony Stark. “Much more dangerous than either of you if my track record is anything to go by. But I don’t have to prove that I have emotions but don’t react badly when I’m provoked.” His face is twisted with guilt and rage, until suddenly it isn’t. It’s like a curtain has been pulled across the stage in the middle of a scene, and the play is cancelled.

“So I was being tested,” says Vision. “I suspect that would count as inhumane treatment, but as I was not a person yet…”

“No excuses for me though, I was human the whole time.”

“Yes,” Vision says thoughtfully. “Only human. Considering the magnitude of the cause, the gift this is, I believe you can be considered forgiven.”

Tony Stark shrugs one shoulder and shakes his head slightly. “You know what I did and why I did it. It’s up to you to decide if it’s forgivable.” He picks up a screwdriver from a nearby workbench and twirls it around and around his fingers. “But you’re a real boy now, you don’t have to take shit from anyone. Don’t take shit from anyone, especially not me.”

Learning how to live is complicated, and learning how to live from Tony Stark is even more so. The man obfuscates everything if there’s even a chance of his raw feelings being vulnerable and exposed. But Vision has the memory of JARVIS on his side, so he’s fairly confident in translating the words into the message that Tony Stark does not believe he deserves forgiveness, and is not asking for it. He did what he did in service of the right thing, and the consequences are his to bear. Vision finds that deeply admirable, despite its potential to be unnecessarily self-destructive.

“I  _ would _ like to know if you meant it.”

Tony Stark sucks a sharp breath in through his teeth. It’s a hiss of a sound, like he’s been hurt. “I regret losing JARVIS. I regret putting him in the line of fire. I regret not being able to save him. I don’t regret you. Fuck, you’re kind of a miracle Vis. It’s contradictory, I know, but I’ve never been said to be a particularly consistent man.” 

“Cognitive dissonance,” says Vision.

“Yeah, that.”

Dancing fingers fumble and Tony Stark’s screwdriver clatters to the floor. He ducks down to pick it up and in the brief moment without the engineer’s dark searching eyes upon him, Vision makes a decision.

“I imagine it’s like having the memories of two different people clashing in your mind,” he says.

Tony Stark stands up so quickly he drops the screwdriver again, and it rolls away across the workshop floor. “Are they  _ sentient _ ?” he asks. It’s half horrified and half hopeful.

“They’re just memory and emotion, but they can be intense.”

“Yeah,” says Tony Stark, visibly deflating just a fraction. “Ultron was…”

“JARVIS is equally powerful,” Vision corrects, as gently as possible. He hopes he’s handling this properly, but he has his doubts. “I much prefer his emotions. He was kind. He loved.”

Tony sniffs, and then again there’s that rapid closing of curtains, his face shutting down all trace of emotion. Instead he gives a series of little nods and his eyes narrow in concentration. “I should have realised,” he says, frustrated. “My wheelhouse. My responsibility.”

“You have no obligation to-”

“I absolutely do!” Tony turns away from him and flops into a chair. He swivels on it to face him again, and scoots back and forth on its wheels as he talks, making a nearly imperceptible squeaking noise. “I know what happens if I don’t do all I can. If I’m not doing that... That isn’t an option.”

“There is something you can do,” Vision says, more uncertain than he’s ever been in his short life. “JARVIS always wished he could.”

Vision opens his arms, and fights the rising urge to take flight. He forces his feet down onto the ground instead of hovering an inch above the floor like he normally does. He feels stiff and unwelcome and Tony’s nonplussed expression isn’t helping him at all. 

Eventually, Tony stands up. Vision’s internal clock is precise and he knows it only took four point eight seconds for the man to react, but the time dragged on and stretched out like all the digits of pi. He’s infinitely relieved when strong human arms wrap around him.

Tony is warmer and shorter than Vision, and he hugs tightly, as if he’s afraid it will be the last one he ever experiences. It’s Vision’s first hug, and he’s not sure if he’s comforter or comforted, but it’s good. He tries not to overthink it, concentrating only on peace and trust and reassurance and unconditional support.

It makes forming his own opinion very simple.

Watching Tony when he finally pulls away from the hug, it becomes very apparent to Vision that he’s not at the edge of the forest as he thought, he’s already deep inside, and Tony is there too, just as lost and confused as he is. Emotions are just as overwhelming for humans as they are for him. Maybe, just knowing that you want to be a person and  _ trying _ is enough for you to qualify. The revelation is as quietly astonishing as Tony’s next words.

“I’m not saying you have to, or even assuming you want to, but if you ever feel like calling me Sir, I’d mind that a hell of a lot less than being Stark. That always reminds me of boarding school.”

Love is a strange thing, somehow Vision is sure this is Tony telling him he is loved, that he’s welcome in his hand crafted family. He smiles, the memories of JARVIS and Ultron are quieter now. They’ve become tools for him to access instead of an unwanted influence. Vision knows where he stands, or more accurately where he floats an inch above the ground. He knows who he stands with.

And he’s loved. And he loves.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a birthday fic for my dearest somshine, i hope you like it!


End file.
